This turned out to be potentially misleading, as it was largely attributed to seasonality. The numbers also didn’t reflect users that created or used accounts that were not connected to Facebook, so the true number might have been slightly skewed.

“Instagram continues to see very strong growth around the world,” Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom told AllThingsD. “With many of the product and internationalization improvements we’ve made, we’ve been excited to see these efforts resonate with users globally.”

So it seems reports of the death of Instagram might have been exaggerated. Facebook paid $1 billion at the time for the photo-sharing app — and now it seems apparent why.